Conservatives Misread Lomborg's "Cool It"

According to the approving Spectator story, "Mr. Lomborg's thesis is straightforward: Global warming is real and humanity needs to do something about it."

PC has provided countless links pointing to data that radically undermine the scientific portion of that thesis. In the past ten years it's been exposed as incoherent, evidentially weak, and often supported by outright fraud.

The policy portion is even worse. The idea that "we" should do anything about the climate - beyond leaving individuals free to adapt to any changes that occur - is the fatal flaw in Dr. Lomborg's argument. No matter what we discover about the physics of the Earth, the politics of the world — not to mention human nature — make it clear that capitalism is the best cure... if there were any problem to solve.

Lomborg may be more skeptical and slightly less statist than many of his fellow Greens, but he still accepts their basic views. He's still committed to Comtean altruism, Roussean environmentalism, and garden-variety collectivism. He still touts a highly dubious hypothesis to justify them. Running around Africa crying over the poor doesn't change any of that.

Bjorn Lomborg is more dangerous than Al Gore precisely because he appears (and is) more moderate. Obvious con men like Gore expose their own racket before long. It's those who are more apparently reasonable - but still opposed to individualism and freedom - who do most of the damage today. Smiley-faced fascism is still fascist. Nanny may intend to be kind, but it's still unwise to give her $100 Billion of taxpayer funds and the power of the State in order to 'do good'.

no scientific conclusion can invalidate the fact that man has rights and that the proper purpose of a government is to protect them. Without exception, the solutions promoted by environmentalists to the problems supposedly caused by AGW violate the proper purpose of government, and most would be worse than allowing the "worst-case scenario" to happen.

I have read Lorenz paper, though it's been several years. Can't quite see the connection between non-linear partial differential equations and AGW, pro or con.

Is the idea that it would require knowledge of infinitely precise initial conditions, and therefore we can't predict the climate long range?

Apart from the skepticism in that position, I think it misreads the lessons of non-linear dynamics. We can't predict, so chaos theory might say, the exact, short-term behavior, but there are discernible long-term patterns. That latter is compatible with AGW.

There are much better reasons to doubt AGW, not least its incoherence and weak evidential support.

plutarch,

Are you suggesting that Lord Monckton is (a) wrong, (b) a wacko, and (c) the only person out there who argues against AGW?

Quite the contrary, there's Dr. Roy Spencer, Dr. Willie Soon, Dr. Patrick Michaels, and on and on. In fact, there are thousands who have serious and well-founded doubts about AGW.

That said, even in the highly unlikely case AGW turns out to be true, Progressive political policies can't possibly turn out to be a good way to deal with it. They never are.

But then, a cynic is unlikely to entertain that free-market hypothesis seriously.

The simplest demolishing of climate theory I've come across in 20 years is to be found on the link on this site to climatescience.org.nz; and scroll to more ~ "Just how little CO2 is there in our atmosphere?"In 85,800 molecules of air, 33 are CO2, of which only 1 produced by humans. That 1 (out of 85,800) is said to cause a catastrophe, while the other 32 do not.The laymans' guide to GW on same site also useful.Lomberg IS a believer in the insanity of AGW, but usefully shows humans coped previously and will cope again and no monies should be squandered.Peter